Digital cameras include at least one camera sensor, such as, e.g., a charge coupled device or “CCD” or complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) sensor. The digital camera includes a plurality of photosensitive cells, each of which builds-up or accumulates an electrical charge in response to exposure to light. The accumulated electrical charge for any given pixel is proportional to the intensity and duration of the light exposure, and is used to generate digital photographs.
Camera sensors have defects, perhaps thousands of defective pixels in a camera sensor having millions of pixels. These defective pixels may be identified during a calibration procedure in which the location of defective pixels is stored in a list on the camera itself. When the camera is used to take pictures, the defective pixels are blurred using pixel data from surrounding “good” pixels.
However, the list of defective pixels uses limited storage space on the camera. In addition, pixels that were determined to be “good” pixels during calibration, may later become defective during camera use. Furthermore, pixels that were determined to be defective pixels during calibration may actually be “good” pixels under different conditions during camera use.